A Tri-City News survey of candidates running for office in the Nov. 15 civic elections in recent weeks was nearly scuttled when more than half of city council candidates refused to fill it out mainly because of one question.
The survey, some of the results of which will be published in The Tri-City News on Friday, and in the VoteSmart voters' guides to be published inside the Nov. 7 edition, asked a number of questions on issues ranging from personal transit usage to city spending but one question was a problem for many.
It seems people running for civic office in the Tri-Cities - especially incumbents - don't like to be pigeonholed as supporting a particular political party. A number of candidates opted not to fill out the survey, which was intended to provide voters with more information ahead of the Nov. 15 election.
The exception was school trustee candidates, most of whom answered the question - and a clear majority of whom said their belief system most closely aligns to the ideology of the provincial NDP.
In all, 13 candidates for trustee stated their belief system most closely reflects the political ideology of the BC NDP, seven said BC Liberal and one - Judy Shirra, who is running for re-election in Port Coquitlam - stated the Green Party. The BC Conservative Party was not a choice of any of the candidates who responded to the survey.
SOME INCUMBENTS BALK
But four trustee incumbents - Port Moody's Keith Watkins and Coquitlam's Gaily Alty, Diane Sowden and Gerri Wallis - opted not to fill out the survey, arguing that they were uncomfortable choosing between the parties either because they thought of themselves as independent or that they voted in last year's provincial election based on the candidate, not the party.
Among the trustee candidates who did fill out the survey, many said they thought the political ideology question unfair or made them uncomfortable for the same reasons but in the interests of getting information out to the public, they answered the question anyway.
Of those who did fill it out, the following stated the NDP most closely matched their belief system: Rob Bottos, Carol Cahoon, Chuck Dennison, Shari O'Neill, Larry Ryan and Jodie Wickens, who are running in Coquitlam; Michael Thomas and Chris King, who are running in Port Coquitlam; Jeanette Jackson, Lisa Park and Alexander Peter Swistak in Port Moody; and Holly Butterfield and Gwen Chute in Anmore/Belcarra.
Those who said their personal belief system most closely reflects the politics of the BC Liberals were: Barb Hobson and Longshu Luo in Coquitlam; Liam Coughlan in PoCo; Melissa Hyndes and Charlie Loo in PoMo; and Celia Chiang and Kerri Palmer Isaak in the villages.
As for city council candidates, so many refused to fill out the survey, the political ideology question had to be scrapped for everyone who is running in the three cities in order to encourage participation and obtain information on candidate views on other issues.
Approximately half of the Coquitlam, PoCo and PoMo council candidates surveyed simply refused to fill out the survey rather than reveal their political ideologies - this at a time when slate politics is becoming more prominent, at least in Coquitlam and Port Moody, where the NDP has aligned itself with political candidates.
